When an e-commerce store isn’t growing, the quickest answer always seems to be the same: more traffic, more campaigns, more automation, more promotions.
But often the point isn’t adding tools. The point is to understand whether user experience, advertising and CRM are working from the same idea of the customer.
In this interview we start from an LU3G view: an e-commerce business grows when every lever reads the same journey. Advertising brings demand, UX helps it turn into a choice, CRM turns it into a relationship. If the three parts stay separate, the system wastes budget, margin and trust.
Why does talking about e-commerce growth today mean talking about coordination?
Because growth is no longer just a matter of traffic. An e-commerce store can have live campaigns, a well-designed site and a CRM full of contacts, yet keep losing opportunities if each lever measures a different piece of the journey.
Coordination prevents a fragmented reading. Before the click there is a promise. During browsing there is a check. After the purchase, or after abandonment, there is a relationship to manage. If these steps aren’t connected, each department can look efficient while the system as a whole doesn’t grow.
What is the first mistake when an e-commerce business wants to grow?
The first mistake is assuming the problem is always acquisition. If campaigns bring in users but the site doesn’t make value, range, trust, costs and purchase steps clear, the media budget ends up making the friction more visible.
Before increasing ad spend, you need to see where the customer stops: unclear product pages, useless filters, a long checkout, different promises in the ad and on the page, CRM segments all treated the same way. This is where growth-focused e-commerce consulting is useful, when it puts priorities, data and operational decisions back in order.
What role does UX play in an e-commerce growth strategy?
UX isn’t there to make the site look better. It’s there to make a decision easier.
In e-commerce, that means helping people quickly understand whether the product is right for them, why they should trust you, what the timescales and costs are, how returns and alternatives work, and what happens after purchase. UX works on internal search, filters, product pages, microcopy, cart, checkout, error messages and post-purchase pages.
That’s why it shouldn’t be separated from the numbers. E-commerce conversion rate, cart abandonment, average order value and repeat purchases aren’t just metrics: they are signals of how the customer moves through the digital store.
Where does advertising come in?
Advertising comes in before and after the visit. Before, because it decides what demand we bring to the site. After, because it helps win back interest, abandoned carts, dormant customers and high-value segments.
A campaign shouldn’t be judged on immediate ROAS alone. It needs to be looked at together with margin, traffic quality, new customers acquired, repeat purchase frequency and value over time. A cold prospect, a regular customer and an abandoned cart are not the same thing. If they receive the same message, the problem lies in the strategy, not the advertising platform.
Is CRM just email automation?
No. Email is a channel. CRM is the commercial memory of the e-commerce business.
It collects signals, tells customers apart from users, triggers communications and helps show which actions create value over time. If it is only used to send newsletters, it remains a tactical tool. If it connects purchases, categories viewed, carts, preferences, tickets, returns and campaigns, it becomes a growth lever.
The link with marketing automation and CRM isn’t about automating everything. It’s about choosing to automate what can be measured, improved and kept consistent with the customer journey.
Which data should UX, advertising and CRM look at together?
They should start from a few shared indicators. Beyond clicks and conversions: margin per order, conversion rate by segment, CAC, LTV, repeat purchases, checkout abandonment, revenue from automation, performance by category and the quality of new customers.
Useful data isn’t the data that fills a dashboard. It’s the data that changes a decision. If a campaign brings traffic that always drops off on the same page, the problem may be UX. If a segment buys once and disappears, the issue may be CRM. If ROAS looks good but margin is weak, the problem is strategic.
What do technical performance and AI Search have to do with e-commerce growth?
They matter because digital growth also depends on infrastructure and measurement. Cloudflare, introducing Cache Response Rules, makes a specific technical point: headers such as Set-Cookie or Cache-Control can affect cache behaviour and how requests go back to the origin. For an e-commerce store, performance and reliability aren’t details: they shape experience, tracking and conversions.
Search Engine Journal, writing about AI Search, stresses the importance of proving effects with real tests. The lesson is useful beyond SEO too: believing a channel is working isn’t enough. You have to design readable tests, connect the data and see whether the impact really improves the customer journey.
What is a practical roadmap for getting started without wasting budget?
The first phase is diagnosis: which products or categories generate margin, which campaigns bring demand, where users get stuck and which CRM segments have potential.
The second phase is prioritisation. You can’t optimise everything at once. You pick one bottleneck, measure it and act on it.
The third phase is orchestration. The ad’s promise, landing page, product page, cart, follow-up and the customer’s return must all tell the same story. Growth doesn’t come from doing more. It comes from building a more consistent sequence.
LU3G insights
Sources
- Search Engine Journal: The source stresses the importance of proving the effects of AI Search with real tests, a principle used in the Magazine to support the topic of measurement.
- Cloudflare Blog: The source notes that headers such as Set-Cookie or Cache-Control can affect cache behaviour and how requests go back to the origin.
Andrea Riva
Andrea Riva handles Paid Advertising at LU3G, where he oversees strategies, campaigns and optimisation on platforms such as Google Ads, Meta Ads and LinkedIn Ads. His approach combines data analysis, platform knowledge and a commercial outlook, with the aim of turning ad budget into an investment that is measurable, sustainable and geared to growth.
Andrea Riva
Andrea Riva handles Paid Advertising at LU3G, where he oversees strategies, campaigns and optimisation on platforms such as Google Ads, Meta Ads and LinkedIn Ads. His approach combines data analysis, platform knowledge and a commercial outlook, with the aim of turning ad budget into an investment that is measurable, sustainable and geared to growth.